


A Matter of Perspective

by vera_invenire



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vera_invenire/pseuds/vera_invenire
Summary: “Hm. You hope for too much, brother.”“When the possibilities are endless, I do not think hope is as futile as you make it out to be.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dome_epais](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dome_epais/gifts).



Rosalind watched as the missiles and bombs fell from Colombia. Unforgiving, they hit the city below, purging and destroying everything in sight. There hadn’t been enough warning for a full evacuation. She rather thought that had been the point.

 _“The seed of the prophet shall sit the throne and drown in flame the mountains of man.”_ Rosalind sighed. “Truly, brother, it does not cheer me that Comstock got what he wanted in the end, even if he didn’t live to see it through.”

Robert didn’t reply. His eyes were fixed on one of the fragmented pieces of Colombia hanging in the sky, old and much battered, one of the few not raining down hellfire on the city below.

It was the remains of Comstock House, and they both knew there was only one person left haunting that place.

“She tried to stop it,” Robert said, voice particularly remote.

“But not before she started it,” Rosalind said. “Though I suppose that is merely another aspect of the tragedy.”

“You would think,” said Robert, “that with all her power and all her knowledge, there might have been another way.”

“By the time she returned to herself, it was far too late," Rosalind said. "Honestly, I imagine it was too late from the moment Comstock took her as a child.”

Robert bowed his head.

Rosalind tugged on his arm. “Come, brother. There are many more places we can go.”

And so they left, leaving the old woman up in her tower watching, defeated, as the city died below.

***

Robert was not content.

She tried, but Rosalind could not determine what was bothering him, and her brother was not being forthcoming as of yet.

What could it be? Rosalind herself did not feel wanting. They had (near) infinite freedom; the greatest mysteries of the universe were laid bare to them; and they had each other. True, they had had to die to get all of that, but all in all Rosalind called it a fair trade.

Still, she knew something was wrong. Not least because Robert kept taking them back to the most dreadful of places.

The small, abused office stank of alcohol and refuse. Its sole occupant was gone – likely finding more alcohol to drown his past, or making whatever meager living he could to get by. He certainly wasn't spending any extra money on décor.

Bitter regret, Rosalind mused while thinking of the old woman in her tower, might as well be this family's defining trait. She was not overly fond of watching their tragedy play out over and over again. Living through it once was enough.

“This place never changes,” Rosalind said.

“It may have, once,” Robert said.

“But it didn’t, so it won’t.”

“No,” Robert agreed. “It won’t.”

Robert walked to the small side room, little bigger than a closet. “He kept the cradle,” he said.

So he had. Rosalind reminded herself that Booker DeWitt’s fate, sad and empty as it was, was of his own making. He could bear his own crosses. “Why are we here, brother?”

After a moment, Robert turned to face her. He clasped his hands behind his back. “I have a proposition for you. An experiment.”

Ah. She sensed they had finally reached the heart of his discontent. “What sort of experiment?”

“A chance to make things right.”

***

Rosalind and Robert were at a rather disagreeable impasse.

"I should have known this was what you've been stewing over," Rosalind said.

"Yes," Robert said. "You should have."

“The scheme is futile.”

“It is not.”

“It is.”

“We know firsthand that pulling someone into another reality is possible.”

“That is not the issue.”

“Then what?”

“Some things in the universe are constant. They cannot fundamentally change when the arc of the universe always leads to the same place. And even if we tried – would we have any right to interfere? Any responsibility? We are no longer a part of the world.”

“The way I see it, we are more connected to the world than ever.”

“A matter of perspective. But in any case, the issue remains purely philosophical. What’s done is done.”

“What’s done _will_ be done. And if the past has yet to happen -”

“- then what’s to say it can’t happen differently?”

“Precisely.”

“Hm. You hope for too much, brother.”

“When the possibilities are endless, I do not think hope is as futile as you make it out to be.”

“And yet I still fear the results of this experiment will be distressingly predictable.”

“You are theorizing in advance of data.”

“I am hypothesizing based off previous experience. All roads lead to Rome. We have seen this.”

"Then we must find a new road for them to walk."

“You mean, we must force them to choose the road we desire.”

“You have a moral objection?”

“I have a practical objection. This play does not have a happy ending, dear brother, no matter what changes we make to the stage.”

“My dear sister. I disagree.”

***

Though the infinite variety of worlds were open to them, Rosalind and Robert tended to stay around Columbia and its various permutations. Perhaps they were truly solitarians at heart. Or perhaps when confronted with the limitless range of the universe, it was more comforting to stay near the familiar.

But they were not restricted from venturing further. And when one is caught in an endless debate regarding the mutability of destiny, one sometimes finds that an outside perspective provides a measure of clarity. Mastery of physics, a worthy study to be sure, sometimes only went so far.

So they sought out others – those who were like themselves, and not, and who had wisdom to share.

And so in a shop that was at once nowhere and everywhere they found a woman who traded in wishes. They sat on the floor of her sitting room like children, the smoke from her pipe curling in the air while they asked her about the potency of free will versus fate. She told them that everything was inevitable and that such inevitability could only be based on one's choices.

"That is free will," Robert said.

"That is fate," Rosalind said.

"It is all the same," the woman replied. "It is all hitsuzen."

She warned them, too, about balance and consequences and equal trades. How all debts must be paid.

In exchange for her wisdom (to wipe away their debt), they left her a small object. They did not know what use she would have for it, but it did not matter. Such a small bone would be of use to anyone else and it was not as if the girl it had once belonged to had need of it anymore.

After the encounter Rosalind was, admittedly, a little smug. She felt the discussion had supported her position quite nicely. But one look at Robert showed that he thought differently.

***

One time, their search for guidance brought them to a simple open field. The only thing to see for miles was a single enormous tree shrouded in a rainbow of butterflies. Beneath the tree the ground was covered, not in flowers, but in a carpet of multicolored wings. Occasionally, the leaves of the tree shook a little, as if something were moving in the branches just out of sight. The tree was, objectively, very beautiful. 

They stopped before they got too close.

“Not here,” Robert said flatly. And though there was no logical reason for it, Rosalind wholeheartedly agreed.

They left that place with haste, the faintest of voices whispering behind them, cajoling them to come back.

***

They continued to travel until they had gone farther than they ever had before, until the steady current of their dark ocean melted into a vast nothingness, dotted only with barren islands of floating rock and monstrous beasts hanging weightless in a formless abyss.

All around them was a void. And in that void, a presence.

“Now aren’t you two interesting,” the boy with black eyes said.

He was old. Very, very old and he seemed to find Rosalind and Robert very amusing.

To this creature they asked questions about interference and how to change the course of destiny. They asked him just how it might be accomplished.

“Direct interference by our kind rarely helps in the way you want it to,” he told them. “Better to find the right person, in the right place, at the right time - someone with nothing left to lose. And then, you give them a nudge. It’s always fascinating to watch just what the desperate can accomplish when you give them a little power.”

“Ah. I'm afraid we don’t have much power to give.”

“You have knowledge to share, along with your – unique perspective.”

“And what if, once granted power, your proxies do not do what you expected them to?”

The boy with black eyes tilted his head. “That would make things much more interesting, wouldn't it?”

Interesting, Rosalind thought as they finally turned for home, was the last thing they needed.

***

“Let us set aside your scheme’s dubious chances for success for the moment. Why do we not agree on the need for this venture? I know we do not see eye to eye on every issue, but we are still in most other ways alike. Why does this divide us?”

“Experience matters, I suppose.”

“What experience?”

“I was the one who took the girl. I gave her to Comstock.”

“You mean you feel _responsible_? Why? The plan was not yours. It was Comstock’s will that the girl be taken.”

“But it was my hands that carried it out. It was our device that made it possible. The world is broken, dear sister, and our actions helped make it that way.”

"...yes. We have our share of the blame. I know that. But it changes nothing. We would be trying to alter the world in _vain_. DeWitt, Comstock, the girl - they have all already made their choices according to their natures. What new choice could we force them to make that would have any difference in the end?"

"I agree with you. There is no single choice that Elizabeth or her fathers could make that would make a dramatic enough difference to change the ending of this story. But there is a choice _I_ can make."

"Brother?"

He faced her squarely, clasping his hands behind his back. “Either we take action to fix this tangle - or I shall leave.”

"...another ultimatum."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because the debt must be paid. And the monstrous debt we owe that girl can be repaid in no other way."

***

For the first time in a long time, Rosalind was alone. By her own choice, for the moment.

Rosalind walked the empty corridors of Monument Tower, years before it would meet it’s demise. She ran her fingers over the cramped equations scratched along the dusty chalk boards. So much time spent diligently working out the mechanics of the universe. Mathematics had been her only means of understanding the mysteries she now knew in her soul.

This was not the first time Robert had threatened to walk away. His direct contact with the girl in Monument Tower had been limited, due in part to his own recovery from adapting to Rosalind’s reality. But when the girl’s powers started spiking in late adolescence, they were both required to manage the overworked system that both monitored and kept the girl caged. Keeping the siphon efficient and operational was an endless chore, but one that had provided a few interesting avenues of scientific inquiry nonetheless.

It was the observation rooms that bothered him. Rosalind was not overly fond of them herself, but they were necessary to track the newly manifested tears in the girl’s vicinity, as well as her growing control of them. Also, Comstock demanded it. And the man who paid the piper called the tune.

Eventually, Robert convinced her to go along with his plan. Comstock was dying and the cage was only a temporary measure in any case – if the girl’s powers kept growing at the same rate, nothing would be able to hold her for long. So she and Robert planned. They would find a way to release the girl from her prison and return her to her own world. (For all the good that would do, Rosalind thought privately.)

But they waited too long. Somehow, Comstock found out about their plans. He moved against them, using Fink to strike at Rosalind and her brother. It was their own compromised machine that ultimately did them in. Rosalind could appreciate the wry irony in that.

She followed the access corridors until she came upon an observation window. And there was the girl, just past sixteen. She was fiddling with one of her locks, schematics and picks all around. It seemed the girl was forever trying to break out of the cage.

It was not that Rosalind felt no guilt over the girl’s fate. She did. After all, the girl’s prison – and therefore her misery – was of Rosalind’s own making. But Rosalind had never been an overly sentimental sort, aside from the matter of her brother.

For her brother, if not for the girl, Rosalind would do anything.

And yet. The last time she had agreed to interfere in Elizabeth's fate, it had ended with both of their deaths. They were beyond that concern now, of course, but that did not mean some new tragedy could not befall them. And by now she knew the truth - this girl and her fathers did nothing but provoke tragedy.

But if she did not help her brother, Rosalind had no doubt that he would do it alone. Much better to go with him on this harebrained scheme once more. At least then she could make sure that no matter what happened, they would stay by each other’s side.

It would have to be enough.

***

She found Robert at the dock, waiting for her in their boat. With a huff she stepped in, but she very pointedly did not touch the oars.

“I do not believe this experiment will be profitable. But I would not lose you. Not for anything." Rosalind sighed. "We have an agreement. I will help you tilt at this windmill to your heart's content."

“...thank you, sister. Well! I am glad we have that settled."

"Hmph."

"Where do you suppose we should we begin?”

“I should think that would be obvious. We must begin at the beginning."

“Ah, yes. Naturally."

And so they began with the man who started it all.

They began with Booker DeWitt.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide!


End file.
